Above: Dressed in his custom-made costume in honor of the San Francisco Bulls, "unofficial mascot" Jay Bergers III of San Francisco eats a burrito before a minor-league hockey game at the Cow Palace in Daly City.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

Above: Dressed in his custom-made costume in honor of the San...

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Riley Goodman, a 9-year-old from San Francisco, rides a mechanical bull in the concourse before the game.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

Riley Goodman, a 9-year-old from San Francisco, rides a mechanical...

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Griffin Gowdy of Novato, 10, gets a good look at the hockey players during the warm-ups before the San Francisco Bulls' Nov. 9 game against Stockton at the Cow Palace.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

Griffin Gowdy of Novato, 10, gets a good look at the hockey players...

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Jay Bergers III of San Francisco draws the spotlight as he cheers on the Bulls in his orange costume.

Photo: Michael Short, Special To The Chronicle

Jay Bergers III of San Francisco draws the spotlight as he cheers...

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A group of fans dance enthusiastically as they are put up on the big screen over center ice for everyone to see. The new minor league hockey team the San Francisco Bulls played the Stockton Thunder at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, CA, Friday November 9th, 2012.

The first-ever game for the San Francisco Bulls was Jay Bergers III's first-ever game as a hockey spectator. He went home with a plan, and now here he comes through the pregame mist in the Cow Palace parking lot.

Bergers stands 6-foot-3 but looks taller than that in his head-to-toe, burnt-orange bull costume, custom-made with Velcro up the front, like kids' fuzzy PJs with the feet in them.

"It's so weird," he says, holding his tail for security like the Cowardly Lion. "The Giants are great. The 49ers are awesome. But I'm almost 52, and I've never been a fan of any team in my life. But I'm a fan of the Bulls now."

Six thousand of them are funneling into the only entrance to the Cow Palace for the third home game on a November Friday night. Minor-league ice hockey has many advantages over major-league ice hockey, the main advantage being that they play ice hockey.

NHL vs. ECHL

Tickets average $22, less than half for a Sharks game, if they ever play another one, and Bulls fans, in burnt orange and black, don't mind razzing the superior attitude in that upper league.

"The NHL is more shine, more glitz, more glamour," says Mark Dorsey, a San Francisco surgical technologist, with Bulls season tickets up against the glass, center ice. "Minor-league hockey is more raw and more personal."

Then there is the gloriously un-updated Cow Palace, a 70-year-old Quonset in the badlands of Daly City. There is a new $1.5 million video cube dangling over the ice, but the arena still looks and feels the same, with lighting that gives everything a yellowish tinge.

Whereas the Sharks take the ice through the teeth of Jaws at HP Pavilion, the Bulls emerge through one of those white canvas garages you get at Costco.

There is no smoke rising off the ice to greet the Bulls, but you can still pick up the faint smell of cigarette smoke from all those San Francisco Seals games in the 1960s.

"I love old-venue, Cow Palace-type hockey," says Dorsey, who does his part by wearing a Bulls jersey over a Bulls opening night T-shirt as he grills sausage on a propane stove in the parking lot.

This is Bulls baseball cap giveaway night, and fans are lined up an hour early to get theirs, even Bergers in his Bulls costume with built-in hood, and even the women in their Bulls ski hats with horns and ear flaps.

"I need all the free stuff I can get," says Sarah Davenport, 21, of Half Moon Bay, who was born a Sharks fan, in 1991, that team's inaugural season. Last year, she and some friends were watching a Sharks game on TV when they saw an ad for the Bulls' inaugural season.

"That's how it started," she says. "We decided we were all going to become Bulls fans and come to all the games."

Now they are 15-strong, sitting center ice, upper deck. "A fan club of our own," she says. "We don't have a name for ourselves, but we don't need one."

The official fan club is called the Matadors. It is run by Rocky and Shelly Barbanica of Pacifica. Both remember seeing the Seals. The Sharks also played two seasons here (1991-92 and 1992-93), and a minor-league outfit called the Spiders lasted one year.

In praise of fanatics

But it has been 16 years without hockey at what Rocky calls "the Cathedral." Shelly has arrived for this game directly from London after a business trip. She didn't have to change into her Bulls jersey in the aircraft lavatory, but she was prepared to, if it came to that.

"There is nothing wrong with fanatics," she says. "Fanatics bring a good edge to any sport. Except in Philadelphia."

The Matadors Boosters Club claims about 20 members, which puts them just ahead of Davenport and her unnamed fan club. They need more, and one candidate is Dorsey, who is down in front, pounding open palms against the glass as the Bulls take the ice.

"I am not a member of the Matadors," says Dorsey, who didn't know there was such a club, "but I will hunt it down."

The front row costs $41 for a padded metal folding chair on a tin riser, and Dorsey scoots right up against the barrier.

"Don't put your beer on the glass," he warns, "or it will get knocked right into your lap." He learned this lesson the first game. He also learned not to pound too hard on the glass or for too long.

"After the first period, I looked down and my hand was red," he says. This caused him to retreat to the Red Hook Lounge, where he made the acquaintance of Charles Seufert and Brian Davis, who were standing around in their matching kilts and Bulls jerseys, alternating orange and white, for home and away.

There was an immediate ice-breaker, aside from the kilts, because Seufert and Davis each wear a goalkeeper's mitt that turns out to be a beer cozy, holding their preferred pour, which is Molson, made in Canada.

"If I'm not driving," says Seufert, who lives in Santa Clara, "six or seven" is his quota.

The kilted cousins are easy to spot as they sit on either side of an exit tunnel, and each is in his own row surrounded by concrete. They call these the "gunner seats."

When the Bulls need a boost, the cousins rise from their seats simultaneously, hands over head, and start a clap-along, beer cozies and all. Seufert maintains that their movements are not choreographed, though they appear to be. "It's all freestyle," he says, modestly.

Bergers also works freestyle. He owns a nutrition company in San Francisco, and is not affiliated with the Bulls. The official mascot is a bull with a more professional costume, named "Rawhide."

"People say, 'Are you the mascot?' and I say, 'Rawhide is the real dude,' " Bergers explains. "I'm the official unofficial wannabe mascot."

Easier to watch

Some would say the players on the Bulls are also wannabes, but about the only thing lacking is the speed of the NHL game. Some would argue that a slower pace is a good thing when trying to follow hockey live. At the Cow Palace, you can see the puck move and hear it snap against a stick on a crisp pass.

When they hit each other, you can hear that too.

"It is more physical than the NHL," says David Watson of Danville, here with the Tri-Valley Blue Devils, a junior team he coaches. "They're really trying to make names for themselves and beat up on each other quite a bit."

Coming off an extended road trip, the Bulls are 2-7, and almost instantly the visiting Stockton Thunder score.

But not on this night. At the end of the first period, the score is 1-1. The place is only half full but the empties are up in the corners, and at intermission the concourse is packed. Someone starts a spontaneous spell-out. "B-U-L-L-S. Bulls Bulls Bulls."

Long time to wind down

The score is still tied going into the third period. Then the Bulls ring up three. Bergers can't just sit there on his tail. He is up and ringing his cowbell, an opening night giveaway.

"That is pretty cute," says Megie Tuft, who came down from Sonoma with Skip Murray. "I wonder if he wore that for Halloween? Could be pajamas."

The score stands at 4-1. Bergers is so jacked up that even after he drives home and peels off the Bulls suit, "I've got another hour and a half of winding down to do."

But he is back the following night to lead the charge against Ontario, a 7-0 loss, and he planned to be there for a Thanksgiving weekend home stand. His family is in upstate New York, but he's staying here.